Surely you know that it is you who pays it.
Have you never noticed?
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Well if you look at the UK they have VAT at 20%. Many places in Europe have a high import duty rate like 33% (which essentially ends up as a consumption tax). Small businesses aren't stung with the GST (they simply pass it on to IRD as an accounting / auditing measure) ; UNLESS the small business is not GST registered, for which they will be stuck paying the GST; but many unregistered businesses don't bother to do proper account or remit taxes).
I do believe NZ has lost it's unique tax advantage of the pre 2000 era. (such as no tax on foreign investments and residents could buy / sell houses without pay any tax on the gains more frequently). In recent years (ie with the media exposure of the Panama Papers etc), NZ is no longer a place where one can hide their wealth. So rather than the gov't trying to make NZ unique, they might as well go all in and tax everything like they do in the EU. But will the NZ gov't do so? As you say the wealthy make their earnings from capital gains through real estate and shares.... what repercussions would we see if such assets were hit with CGT at a higher level? Something tells me the NZ gov't is afraid as I think there's already a fine line where the rich start moving their assets abroad. You kill the only investment left for NZ, what incentive would there be left to live in NZ?
Definition of 'income' has been spelled out quite easily in the tax books abroad. When I was doing tax courses at uni in Canada, the ITA had all sorts of definitions for incomes / scenarios. But the most interesting aspect i've found was there was no definition for a 'person' in the book. They intentionally left it out to allow for the future trend (as we see today 'virtual bodies'? which can be taxed). It would not take much for IRD to follow similar rules and copy the wording nearly word for word.
Inflation adjusted CGT has been tried in Australia for many years... it didn't work and was complex - having all sorts of inflation rate tables that could be scrutinized as the inflation rates of certain assets varied from year to year from asset to asset. At the end they simply copied the Canadian method of taxing CGT by simply taking half of the gain as being taxable income. The result overall is still a lot less tax paid as the 1 half of the gain is tax free in the person's pocket. I can't see how this would not work in NZ - it's only a question if the NZ politicians want to pay their fair share too?
Me either, a long as it applies to all real property, including the family home, and collectables; e.g art, cars, antiques, jewellery and a few other bits. Currently they fall under the same 'intent' rules. A CGT needs to be comprehensive and well designed or it's useless, or even worse than useless as it redirects activities.
All gains, income and capital, should be taxed. If there should be an inflation adjustment, then it would make more sense instead for investment income or fixed interest to have an annual inflation adjustment before income from the investment is taxed. Then any gains should be taxed when the asset is sold.
The equity in the family home should be included as a taxable asset too, with imputed rent and taxable capital gains with the annual allowance for inflation offset against imputed rent.
Perhaps there should be a threshold before the flat tax applies.
Here's an article I came across today:
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/1046...rease-spending